Workamper News

Opportunities for Workampers are limited only by one’s imagination and initiative. Ron Shepard and Jerry and Sharon Mays, all relatively new to RVing, are proof. Ron, a single act, and Sharon and Jerry, a singing duo, have stepped into the RV world to pursue their dreams of entertaining and inspiring others with their music.

Businesses on the road require a dream, particular skills, and the identification of a niche for a service or product. Imagination, creativity, and a heavy dose of persistence also help. Those characteristics fueled truck driving instructor Dick Reed when he started RV Driving School back in 1991. A seasoned RVer himself, he saw a need to teach other RVers how to safely drive their rigs. Dick opened his school and served thousands of satisfied customers from over 48 states before retiring and selling his business in 2007 to one of his trainers, Dennis Hill.

“Welcome to my studio,” Volunteer Carol Miller says on the patio behind the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument Visitor Center in the southern Arizona Sonoran Desert.

For Workampers seeking a bit of the Old West mixed in with Hollywood’s Golden Age, Parry Lodge at Kanab, Utah, is the next best thing to living and working on a movie production lot. Founded in 1931 by the three Parry brothers, the Lodge has hosted stars while they filmed in scenic locales in and around Kanab. Today, names such as John Wayne, Olivia De Havilland, Gregory Peck, Maureen O'Hara, Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Lana Turner, Clint Eastwood and Barbara Stanwyck are still on selected doors of the 89 rooms in the Lodge, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A few of the movies and television series filmed in the area include Wagon Train, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Mackenna’s Gold, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, and The Outlaw Josey Wales.

The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge called Linda Lanoue’s name from the Workamper News Hotline. She and her husband Fred had spent a couple of winters in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and had visited the refuge many times. “But we weren't looking for jobs in the winter of 2007,” Linda says. “I hadn't even been reading the Hotline, but that particular day, the ad for volunteers at Santa Ana got my attention. We thought the volunteer roles would give us a chance to experience a different type of Workamping than we had done before. We already knew that the positions would be in an interesting place that we already liked.”